


unspoken words

by hqprotectionsquad



Series: Haikyuu!! One Shots [20]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Budding Love, Eventual Romance, F/M, Family Reunions, Fluff, Lunch, Mother's Day, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hqprotectionsquad/pseuds/hqprotectionsquad
Summary: For the first time in five years, Yachi Hitoka is going to see her mother on Mother's day. Is this a recipe for celebration or disaster?
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yachi Hitoka
Series: Haikyuu!! One Shots [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702609
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	unspoken words

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I am cross-posting my content from tumblr (hqprotectionsquad) to this AO3 account. I hope you all enjoy! If you liked this one shot, please leave a comment or kudos!
> 
> This fic was inspired by mxmtoon's song "unspoken words." Feel free to have a listen while reading!

“Can you let me in, Hitoka?” Tsukishima’s voice is muffled through the wood and Yachi rushes to turn the handle and fling the door open. In comes a man who hauls in paper bags in his arms with his glasses on the brink of sliding off of his nose. Before she has a chance to think, Yachi pushes up his glasses and Tsukishima scrunches his nose at her action.

“What did you bring?” Yachi leans on Tsukishima to try to see what is in the brown bags he carries. It’s Thursday evening, which means after Tsukishima’s shift at the museum, he picks up groceries at the market and dinner for the two of them. “How much can I pay you for the dinner?” She asks as he begins filling the refrigerator with vegetables and fruits. Yachi stands on the outside of the fridge, where photos are suspended by magnets. One features the Karasuno boys’ volleyball team at Nationals, another has Yachi’s selfie with Tsukishima. There are also usually lists of items needed, and the papers are replenished every Monday and Thursday, when they take the list with them and buy groceries for the apartment.

“You don’t even know what I’ve bought for dinner.” Tsukishima side-eyes Yachi as he continues, “For all you know, I could’ve brought leftovers from the dumpster and you would still pay me beforehand.”

Yachi’s mouth gapes at his accusation, but she quickly composes herself. “You’re not wrong,” she says with a pout. Yachi fiddles with her phone while Tsukishima finishes unpacking the products from the bag. Now, the fridge looks happy to be full again.

Tsukishima sets the table pressed against the wall with plates and cutlery. It’s a small table, like the rest of their furniture. They both live humble lives, so why not live together? It’s not like they each take up a grand piece of space and the apartment they live in is snug enough to fit their belongings. He’s about to tell her that he bought curry and even splurged on two slices of strawberry shortcake when he passed by a bakery on his way home, but she’s already preoccupied with a call of some sorts.

“Hello?” Yachi speaks into the receiver softer than usual. She doesn’t want to attract attention, so she sinks into the edge of her bed, with her door slightly open, but she’s sure Tsukishima will end up seeing her anyhow.

“Hitoka, hi. It’s your mother. Are you free on Sunday?” Yachi barely mutters a word out before her mom continues with her steamrolling agenda. Yachi is one-hundred percent sure that her mother is calling her between clients, acting as if Yachi should be thankful that her mom reached out to her. “Great, let’s have lunch together. Sounds good?” 

“Yes, that’s fine.” As quick as her mother calls her, she is just as quick to leave. Yachi is used to this, or rather she should be used to it by now. She wasn’t the most doted on as a child. Then, Yachi grew older and only saw her mother in the mornings, dashing out the door with a piece of bread in her mouth. Sometimes, Yachi would stay up much past her bedtime, with her sheets balled up in her fists by her eyes, and the light in the kitchen would spread into her bedroom by the crack by the door. Yachi would hear her mother slurping on instant noodles at two in the morning and her mother would be up again four hours later, but all without a single word exchanged between the two. By the time she applied to universities, Yachi only told her mom her final choice instead of the eight schools where she competed for a spot in their marketing department. 

Isn’t it sad?

“Is everything alright?” Tsukishima enters her room with barely a warning. His footsteps are soft, but his presence is known when Yachi turns her head to see him.

With a breath in and out, she replies, “Not really, but I wish it was.” 

Tsukishima has gotten far since high school. Yachi believes that she might have had something to do with his attitude change, but she knows that college has also brought him out of his shell. When they first moved in together as roommates, Yachi needed to yank his feelings out of him whenever Tsukishima would brood in his room for a weekend-straight. Now, Tsukishima will approach Yachi at times.

“Let’s eat dinner. Maybe you can get your mind off it after eating.” After he crosses the room in two steps to get to Yachi, he nudges her to get out of her room and into the kitchen.

Tsukishima serves her, not asking a single question until she mumbles through her rice, “My mom asked me to come meet her on Sunday. Of all days, Mother’s day.”

“Huh.” He says in reply, not really knowing what else to say.

“She’s barely been a mother to me. I don’t know why she comes now that I’m out of university and have a stable job that she wants to meet me.” Yachi sets down her utensils to thread her fingers through her hair with a roll of her eyes. She’s grown a tougher skin in this city she’s lived in since the start of her adulthood. “I really don’t want to be alone with her.” She pauses for a moment, letting her mind reel. Yachi’s eyes open wide all of a sudden and Tsukishima is afraid that her eyeballs will pop out. “What if you came with me to my mother’s lunch, Kei? Are you doing anything on Sunday?”

“Well, considering my family lives three hours away, not exactly.” Tsukishima shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, I’ll come with you.” While he has gone out with Yachi multiple times, he’s never been used as a plus-one and in this situation, he has no idea what he’ll be introduced as.

The week progresses much quicker than they both could have imagined.

“Are you sure this is okay, Kei? I don’t want you to come if you’ll be uncomfortable with me and my mom,” Yachi says, looking up at him. She’s wearing a black dress, tight on top but flares out at the knees. If she saw herself on the street, she would think she’s dressed up for a funeral. Tsukishima is indubitably brighter for once, but only in comparison, as he dons a polo shirt that matches the color of the clear sky.

“If it wasn’t okay, then I wouldn’t be standing next to you on the train,” he mutters as he holds her tight against his skin. It’s something he’s used to doing whenever they are on the same train together. He doesn’t remember when it started, but he does remember why. Something to do with creepy men and Tsukishima offhandedly offering he’d hold her, and Yachi praising him for a brilliant idea. Now, they’re like this. He doesn’t mind because he’s a placeholder, an intermittent person to step in before Yachi has a person to do that for her.

Well, at least that’s what he believed when they moved in together their first year of college to save money on rent, but they’ve never moved out to this day.

Their stop arrives and everyone from businessmen to children get off and move onto the just as crowded platform. Somehow, despite the busyness, everyone knows where to go and when to shift in this march of the morning. Each step in this district is made of surreal dreams that formed out of thin air. Maybe in middle school, Yachi would be so excited to see this happen one day, but now that this day has come, her stomach wrings into tight knots.

Tsukishima sees the look on her face, something he’s seen often, caused by miniscule and large things. Without exaggeration, he could say her face is showing off green tones. Suppressing the want to sigh, he scoops her hand into his and leads them towards the station’s exit.

“Have you been to this station before, Tsukishima?” Yachi rattles off as they walk out of the sliding doors and into the next city. She continues to say whatever’s on her mind or maybe these are words to say to distract her mind.

“Hitoka, you never said where you’re meeting your mom.” Tsukishima grits his teeth as he manages to weave between the sidewalk traffic, looking down to spare his eyes from ticked off passersby. They must think they’re foreigners by the looks of their hair. “We kind of need to know so we can get to the right place.” Tsukishima pulls Yachi to the side of a building, taking refuge by this wall. He lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding in after he glances at their still interlaced fingers. She doesn’t even bother to unlatch, that’s how nervous she is, Tsukishima thinks to himself.

“Right! Let me check my phone.” Yachi smiles up at Tsukishima and then her eyes drag down to where her bag bounces against her hip. “Huh?!” Her hand rips out of his loose grasp. Is she that mindless that she hadn’t realized Tsukishima’s hand was touching hers. With a crimson sweep across her face, she scans the short thread of text messages exchanged between her and her mother. “It seems like we should be heading three blocks in that direction,” Yachi says after a pause. She toys with the star charms that hang from her phone with one hand and with the other, she points in the direction of the station and onward.

“So we’ve walked three blocks, just to walk double that,” Tsukishima drawls.

“I’m sorry!” She doesn’t need to look at him to see the word disappointment written all over. “We’ll be alright, my mom’s not expecting us for another half hour,” she mumbles after feeling under the pressure of his gaze. 

“Let’s just get going.” Tsukishima motions for them to join the sea of people on their way back to the office after a lunch and tourists exploring the city at this random time of day. “Come on, hold my hand so you don’t get lost.” His intentions are self-indulgent, but he presents as a protective friend, which is all that matters.

Yachi reluctantly allows it and they assimilate with Tsukishima leading. She just sees his back as they move one-by-one in this mass of bodies and she’s never been more thankful for him than in this very moment. Soon enough, they stand in front of the restaurant her mother wanted to meet up at. Unfortunately, Yachi never mentioned that the restaurant they’ll be dining at puts Tsukishima at a risk of being kicked out.

“Is this going to be alright to go inside?” Tsukishima pulls at his short sleeved shirt, but before he can continue, Yachi’s already tugging at the metal beam to open the door. She looks ridiculously small, with her fingers just barely grazing each other around the grip. He reaches over her head and pulls on the handle as well. “Well, ladies first,” he says.

“Thank you!” Her voice switches into a more professional tone as she begins conversing with the hostess of the restaurant. Despite her size and her anxieties, she’s great at stepping up when she needs to. 

When she makes it back to Tsukishima, who is nestled in a chair in the corner, she tells him that the hostess will come get them when they have everything ready with the room. “My mom’s already there.” She sits on the armrest of his chair, her body fitting the edge of it precisely. She brushes the fabric of her skirt downward with a careful hand.

“You’ll be okay.” Tsukishima doesn’t know what to do or what to say. He’s never seen her this thrown off. Even during their high school years, seeing her deal with his teammates seems like a cake walk at this point. He’s never felt so weighted with the truth that isn’t even his own. 

“I haven’t seen my mom in person in nearly five years. We’ve called on the phone, but it feels so transactional. She only calls when she feels like I could benefit her in some way. I don’t even know how she is on a personal basis. I don't know how she’s doing at work, if she has someone in her life. I don't know how she lives. Shouldn't I know this?” Her shoulders shake ever so slightly, and then all at once, they move up and down, side to side.

“Hitoka, it's okay. You’ll be okay.” Before he knows any better, Tsukishima stands and he just does what his instincts tell him to do.

“What?” Yachi asks as she’s being pulled into his chest, and she doesn't have the heart to ask further questions. Her hair and ear presses against the stable curve of his body. His heart is quickening as his hands land on opposite shoulders.

“Yachi-san, party of two.” The hostess calls into the waiting area, and Tsukishima nearly jumps away, now standing three steps away from her. He is sure someone saw their melodramatic performance and rolled their eyes at it. If he were on the outside, he would too. But on the inside of this bubble, maybe he’s not thinking so much about what other people think. 

Yachi pays no mind to it and follows the hostess without sparing a glance to a scrambling Tsukishima, who rubs the lenses of his glasses on the hem of his shirt. First impressions start with being able to see her mother.

When they enter the private room that her mother has arranged for the lunch appointment, the first thing Yachi notices is her mother’s eyes, or rather, the lack of gaze. Her mother’s eyes are on her phone, clicking away on the device. They still contain the same beauty that Yachi admires, laced with lines around them. While her mother doesn't have the same youthfulness as she did when Yachi saw her last, she is the most beautiful.

Yachi doesn’t want to be rude, so she waits until her mother is done with her business and her eyes look to her daughter and this man right next to him. “Hitoka, it’s good to see you.” Her mother rises from her chair to meet her.

Her mother stretches her arms around her daughter and it is a foreign feeling for everyone in the room. Her mother hasn’t felt her baby in her arms in five years, Yachi hasn’t felt the comfort of motherly love, and for Tsukishima, he feels the palpable awkwardness between them. At last, Yachi pats her shoulders, in the best attempt to reciprocate this action.

When her mother releases, she gestures for the two of them to sit across from them.

The first questions that come out of Yachi’s mouth are “Are you on a lunch break? Do we have a set amount of time to be with each other?” and Tsukishima doesn’t know whether to feel appalled for her mother or be proud of Yachi for standing up for herself, in this strange manner. For sure, Tsukishima did not expect anything of the sort to happen if it were based on when they first met at Karasuno. Yachi surely has changed, but so has Tsukishima.

“No, nothing like that.”

“Happy mother’s day, I brought you something,” Yachi says. She reaches into her bag and she relinquishes a leather wallet that must have cost her a fortune, adorned in gold embellishments and pressed all over with a brand. 

“Thank you, this means a lot to me, Hitoka.” And she’ll put it into her closet, with the rest of the items she’s purchased or have received as gifts. This is the woman she has grown to know as her mother. “But I didn’t ask you to come here because I expected a present. I came here because I want to see you. It’s mother’s day, but I’m not a mother without you.”

“Of course she would say something like this,” Yachi mutters under her breath as she balls her hands into fists underneath the table, her dress fabric becoming one with her hands.

“This isn’t like you, Hitoka,” Tsukishima whispers into her ear. This isn’t like her. He feels like a wedge between them, a referee of some sorts. “I shouldn’t be here.” His teeth are gritted, finding new things within a half a conversation about this girl he’s known for years.

“You should stay, Tsukki,” Yachi replies, using his old nickname. Turning her head back to her mom, she takes a deep breath and lets everything out all at once. “You shouldn’t have called me, you know. We can live without each other.”

“Is it a crime,” the woman on the other end looks right into Hitoka’s eyes and she squirms under the sudden dissection. “Is it a crime,” she repeats. “to see the woman that made me a mother? I’m sorry I haven’t been there—”

“It can be when my mother doesn’t speak to me for a few years and then she suddenly wants to get in contact with me.” Yachi holds onto Tsukishima’s hand underneath the table, their fingers intertwining, but it is different than when Tsukishima led Yachi through the streets of this city. 

“But I want to get to know you now.” And there is an earnest look in her eye that causes Yachi’s insides to rub rotten. “I am telling you the truth, Hitoka. I love you, and you are my only daughter. You can ask me anything and I will not tell you a lie.”

Yachi’s lips press into a thin line and her eyebrows connect at the center of her face. Tears rush from her cheeks up to the bottom of her eyes, but she won’t let her body feel the resolution it seeks. “How can I trust you? How can I trust you, mom?” Yachi’s just letting all the words come out, not knowing whether or not her words hold the tone she’s really feeling. She tries her hardest to hold against the walls she’s built, but she can feel the crumbling from the inside.

“I don’t know what to say, Hitoka.” Madoka slides the hair tie out of the bundle and lets all of her hair fall. The strands curl at the ends without effort and they reach to the bottom of her shoulder blades. It’s as Yachi remembered, but not quite. “If you can’t trust me now, then I suppose that’s okay. But I want you to trust me eventually. I care about you, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not supporting you these last few years, but I want to make up for it.”

It’s hard to pick out what Yachi wants to hear when everything feels fabricated and made up on the spot. The muscles in her chest stretch out from the middle, or maybe it’s her lungs squeezing with too much effort. Either way, she must be on fire and her tears want to extinguish her flames.

Tsukishima feels like Hitoka’s blazes have expanded into the outside world because what he just saw go down between the two women in this room seemed like a fire truck combusting into spontaneous flames. “Hitoka,” he mutters. With his thumb, he wipes away a stray teardrop that hugs against the side of her cheek. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.” Her words aren’t directed at a single person, but she still feels the need to apologize for how she’s feeling. “I’m sorry, mom.”

“I am the one that’s at fault. There’s nothing to be sorry about, Hitoka.” Her mother, the vision of poise, is blubbering her words softly, but it’s clear that she’s trying to keep everything together. She stands and is tentative with her steps. “Would it be okay if I hugged you right now?”

“Please.”

Tsukishima watches the pair make up and eventually, he notices the wistful smile he has on. He wishes he were with the rest of his family, crowded around a table to fight for food, even if it is just the three of them. This is his life now, though. He’s made up his mind on where he is living, but he doesn’t have to be set on how his family relationships lie.

Tsukishima’s hand has been long unoccupied as Hitoka speaks to her mother in hushed tones, Hitoka’s lips moving right by her ear and arms slung around her mother’s neck. He can’t hear them, but by the looks of their faces, it must be reviving conversation.

“Oh, right! Mom, this is Kei.” He can’t deny that there’s something inside that swells deep when Hitoka introduces him as Kei to her mother, but all there is to show on the outside is a polite smile.

Madoka straightens her back to look at him through slotted eyes. “I feel like I’ve seen him before, when you were in high school.”

“Right, he was on the volleyball team. Well, he’s still playing volleyball with the Sendai Frogs. He’s a great player and I try to make their games whenever I can,” Yachi beams with delight.

“Your family must be so proud, Kei.” Madoka takes a pause before continuing. “Are you two dating? Is this why you brought him today, Hitoka?” There is a teasing implication running along her tongue as she speaks.

At the same time, Yachi says “sort of” and Tsukishima says “no.” In an unironic and comical fashion, they both turn their heads at each other and stare.

“Oh,” Yachi’s mother mutters, holding a hand to her mouth. She only planned to be part of one reunion, but seeing another union blossom right before her eyes is priceless.

“I wanted to talk to you about that, Kei,” Yachi’s eyes can’t quite meet his when she says this. “Nobody else knows me like you do.”

“Right.” He glances back and forth between Yachi and her mother. This would be a weird way to confess that he’s been in love with her for the past four years, but he decides that any time would be better than this. “We should talk about this later, but I feel the same way about you.”

“Oh, great! Maybe I’ll have grandchildren one day!”

“Mom!”


End file.
